Literacy Sponsors

     Besides a few select geniuses, most people had to be taught how to read. Although I was arrogant enough to call myself a genius when I was a child, I too needed to be taught. It became clear early on that my reading comprehension was at a higher level than my peers. By first grade I could read books meant for middle schoolers. My parents nourished my love of reading, but in two drastically different ways. Because they encouraged me to develop my literacy skills, Deborah Brandt would call them my literacy sponsors. Brandt defines a literacy sponsor as “a delivery system for the economies of literacy, the means by which these forces present themselves to – and through – individual learners” ("Sponsors of Literacy", p. 167). She refers to a metaphorical delivery system, but my parents were literally delivering the materials necessary to sponsor my literacy since I was a kid with no money to buy books.

    Each parent will get an individual post, but the gist of their influences is this: my mom gave me age-appropriate books that nurtured my mind, and my dad gave me books that were too intense/mature that scared me (and probably explains some of the psychological issues I have today).